Code Monkeys

WARNING: The language NSFW, and the animation is bordering on it too.



Umm...whoa. WTF? I was expecting something geeky from this new 8-bit animated show, but not this. Guest stars will include Steve Wozniak, David Jaffe and Nolan Bushnell. I can't imagine where they're going to go with this.

Insecticide

oooooo! The trailer itself is ok, I mean, it's a cinematic and doesn't really say much about the gameplay. But what I'm interested in is what Kotaku had to say about it: the developer is staffed with members of the dev teams behind Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango and Curse of Monkey Island. Usually when people list the credentials of their team, they go for the Triple-A bestselling games. This list of games is obscure and ancient!

Curse of Monkey Island, while I've never had the chance to play it, is legendary. Day of the Tentacle, however, I played tons of. I could only do it using the walkthrough though, because some of the puzzles are just plain bizarre. In fact, I think that DotT was my first encounter with a walkthrough.

Grim Fandago is a game I kept an eye on, it always looked so great I wanted to get it! I watched some friends play it, but never got around to purchasing it for myself. Still, it's probably the most often quoted game in my household "Run you pigeons! It's Robert Frost!"

Based on the classic puzzlers they listed, bizarre and pun-filled as they are, I have to pick up Insecticide:) As one person commented on the thread "They could poop in a box and I would buy it."

Penny Arcade game looks lame

Wow. I totally think they're missing the mark with this one. Penny Arcade is read by hardcore gamers. This does NOT look like a hardcore gamer kinda game. The cell-shading cinematic sequences look pretty neat, but I doubt that'd be enough to keep the PA audience interested. Most will probably download a cracked version to see it for camp-value. But I don't think that the fanbase will be interested in this simplistic game.

Iris

I had been hoping they'd start up again! Bungie recently launched Iris, an ARG to precede the Halo 3 launch.

As you may recall, a month ago I re-posted an article that I wrote about the writer for the first ARG. Once that ended, the community was hungry for more. We jumped onto EA's attempt at the genre (really the only major company that made a non-promotional ARG game), Majestic. It was episodic, only lasting a five episodes. The neatest part of that was getting voicemail from Joe Pantoliano. Seems as though the genre and delivery method were both before their time. I wonder if another attempt might be more profitable 5 years later.

In any case, following that, the next big ARG was I Love Bees. This was the first Bungie ARG, used to promote Halo 2. It's considered the most successful of this niche genre to date. The puzzles and such aren't nearly as complex as The Beast making it easier for anyone to participate. Also, they had the whole Halo fanbase as a built-in audience.

Iris stands to be even bigger, With Halo 3 being (supposedly) the final game of the trilogy and the fanbase bigger than ever and everyone itching to see what the game will be like on the next gen systems. Also, with major TV shows on hiatus for the summer and vacation time happening, people have lots of spare time on their hands to spend on playing this kind of game. Halo 3 launches late September, giving players 4 months of ARG to look forward to. Not to mention the extra word-of-mouth and column-inches advertising that Bungie will get in the meantime.

I'm not especially interested in Halo, but I'm hoping they deliver a quality ARG!

Here's a Gamasutra feature on the history of the genre.

Stupid Mr. Wright

Oh. And Spore is delayed. At least until 2009. Boo-urns.

Games on Vinyl

This is actually pretty neat!

Apparently there were a few records released (way back before my time :P) that had computer games on them. Computer games. On records. In the 70s. Awesome.

A few groups that still release on vinyl have done similar things recently too.

Family games

Gamasutra ran a nice feature article for Father's Day called How Killing People With My Dad Improved Our Relationship. I love silly headlines:)

My whole family has always been into gaming. Me and my dad never really played all that much together. But me and my brother sure did. In fact, it's the only time I ever really got along with my little brother. Castle Wolfenstein 3D, Contra, it's the only time we'd play co-operatively.

I was amazed when I read this other article a few weeks ago saying that the average age so starting to use electronic device has dropped for 8.1 to 6.7 from 2005 to today. The first computer in our house arrived when I was about 8 years old back in 1986. I wonder what the average was back then?

My dad has always loved gadgets and stuff. I remember the first game he bought for me, Ticket to Paris, so that I could practice my French. My then 5 year old brother got Reader Rabbit. We had lots of fun with Borderbund's Printshop as a whole family!

Heck, when the 8-bit Nintendo came out, even my grandma got into gaming. She was the original gaming granny. She bought the system for us, I'm sure, but in the end she seemed to get more use out of it than we ever did. Casino Kid and Wheel of Fortune were her favourites.

In our house, my parents encouraged us to use the computer. Which is pretty amazing when I think back on it. That EXPENSIVE piece of electronic equipment was in the hands of clumsy kids. Today most kids can handle the computers better than their parents, but looking back, I'm happy my parents gave us those opportunities to experiment with technology at such an early age.

I remember, when I had the computer room to myself, going through my dad's 5 1/4" disks. That's where I discovered Rogue. To this day, I've always had Rogue (or NetHack) on every computer I've owned. I've never gotten close to finishing it. But because of my dad, I've had that gaming link in my life for more than 20 years now.


(Silly aside: When playing Rogue, I used to name my characters after my crushes, to see how well they'd do in battle for me. It's like that cheesy Loves-me-Loves-me-not flower petal thing, but way geekier. Oh god, I'm such a dork.)

My mom was never all that into gaming, but she'd listen to us go on, what I can only assume was endlessly, about our games. I never recall her telling us to talk about something else or seeming uninterested in what we were talking about.

So while I can't entirely relate to that Father's Day article, video games have always been part of my family's life. It's amazing how that one little thing I loved as a kid has actually become my career! The passion, encouragement and non-judgmental attitude towards video games in my family played a huge role in that, no doubt.

Sims get stylish

The Sims and H&M team up for a fan-fuelled fashion extravaganza!

More than anything, I'm surprised it's taken soooooo long for The sims to really get into the in-game ads game. I think they may have featured one or two brands (fans have been adding in their own branded content since the original). But this is the first time they're teaming up with a major brand and they're going big with it!

Basically, players can design their own clothing and judges, including some H&M designers, will pick the best to be featured in an online fashion show. And then some of the best designs will be made into clothing in real life to be sold at H&M stores.

That's pretty cool:) And perfect for their audience too! User-generated content is huge in the Sims world. Since the start EA has been great about providing users with the tools they need and the community that has grown from that is massive and dedicated.

I'm amazed that EA has kept out brands this long. But I think the way that they're introducing them is appropriate for this game.

Lightsaber on the Wii

This could be the game that really makes it for the Wii...

The head of the LucasArts, the game division for “Star Wars” series creator George Lucas, told AFP a Wii game that lets players wield virtual light sabers is on the horizon.

Woohoo! How many people want to have lightsaber battles, especially geeks! You get the old AND the young crowd. I can also see them using The Force with the Wiimote. I think that could be a really awesome game:)